I have been using Soundly since it was in beta as my sound effects management software and I even made Soundly my Team Find Of The Year for 2016. Since then the team have been working hard to make Soundly better and they released Soundly V2. Check out their new video below...

I’m a keen user of Soundly, but my workflow is a bit different from those who use it strictly as a sound library and edit tool. I use it to share audio with picture editors and directors from the very beginning. I make sound libraries specifically designed for the editors and directors using Soundly as a central hub for effects and music.

What Is Soundly?

Soundly is billed as "a cloud-based sound effects library and workflow tool" but it also does a very good job of cataloguing sound effect collections on local drives as well as being a cloud-based sound library with access to thousands of premium sound effects and a powerful workflow tool.

Soundly is arguably unique. Not only does it contain an online library of sound effects, but it also features a specialised application for editing and placing sounds. With a click, Soundly subscribers can instantly audition any sound and edit it on-the-fly using the waveform view before dragging and dropping the desired portion of the sound into popular editing applications such as Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic and FCP, Avid Media Composer, or Adobe Premiere Pro.

Soundly provides a centralised hub to search for sound effects not just in the cloud library, but also on local storage, shared network attached storage, and even through large online systems like Freesound.org. Christian Schaanning, Co-founder of Soundly explains...

No other software on the market integrates sound effects in the cloud like Soundly. Our customers tell us Soundly is so fast that it feels like you are working on a local drive. You can work in every possible location as long as you have an internet connection. No hard drives or dongles are needed. With V2, we’ve raised the bar significantly adding new core features like a shared cloud collaboration space for sharing personal collections of SFX with colleagues and friends.

What Is New In Soundly V2?

The team at Soundly has added over 100 new workflow improvements including a new shared collaboration space and access to more than 10,000 high-quality sound effects to the cloud library,

10GB Of Collaboration Space - In V2, every individual Soundly subscriber receives 10 GB of collaboration space in the Soundly Cloud. Multi-user accounts get as much space as they need, enabling them to move their entire workflow to the cloud. Users can share personally created sound effects with colleagues and friends. Perfect for feeding picture editorial with SFX for rough cuts and sketches, shared sounds can be used in projects as easily as a sound from the Soundly Library.

Use A Shared Database - Also in V2, users can now work on the same shared database over a network. Editors can log on from different accounts, and access sounds without indexing all sounds on different computers. If changes are made to the local database, like adding more sound effects, they will automatically appear in every user’s library folder. Unlike other systems, there’s no separate server required, and setup is extremely easy.

Spot To Pro Tools With Handles - For Pro Tools users, Soundly has implemented “Spot to Pro Tools” — By pressing one button, Soundly 2 spots a sound effect region to the cursor in Pro Tools, and automatically copies the audio to the sessions audio files folder. Best of all, the copied audio includes "handles" so an editor can trim start and end points of the sound clip to make it longer than the original selection.

Additional highlights of Soundly V2:

NAS over internet support – Access a sound library from a NAS drive directly.

Multi-users can now generate their own license codes – great for educational institutions with many users.

New UI – Clearer and more concise menus and graphical elements

Search History – New “back” button enables users to go back in their search history to look for more sounds of the same type.

Increased speed control range – Right click and select 2x 4x 8x.

Even more shortcuts and improved search

Peder Jørgensen, Lead Developer and co-founder at Soundly explains...

With 100 new features, most directly implemented from user feedback, Soundly is a perfect fit for both video and audio editors alike. Our beta users have been delighted, and we can’t wait for all of our users to get their hands on it. For V2, we’ve created a new video which we’re very proud of. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.

How To Get Soundly 2

You can get a free version from Soundly for Mac or PC, Soundly is free to download and includes access to 300 sounds.

The Premium SaaS version includes 10,000+ premium sound effects, full sound catalogue indexing, access to the Soundly store for specialised in-app purchases, and access to 100,000+ more sounds from Freesound.org to use within Soundly, all for only $14.99 per month. If you want to catalogue your local drives like me then you will need this version.

My Thoughts And Experiences With Soundly

Soundly lets you search your local sound libraries, edit and place them to on the timeline instantly. That for me is the main feature in Soundly, when I am working in Pro Tools using Workspace, if I have a 5 minute atmos track, I’ve got to import the whole thing, drop it somewhere else on the timeline, audition it, trim it down to what I need, and move it to the correct place on the timeline. With Soundly, I simply play it, select the bit I want, and drag just what I want straight into the right place on the Pro Tools timeline. Job done.

I was also impressed at how Soundly catalogued my 50,000+ sound effects that use a range of different metadata systems. It just worked its way through my libraries, and now searching for the right sound effect in Soundly is quick and easy, and unlike Workspace in Pro Tools, I no longer have to look across different fields, the metadata is all there in one place in Soundly.

Now you may be saying that this isn't new, there are other sound effect librarian packages that do similar things and you would be right but that isn't all Soundly does.

What if I don't have 'that sound effect' I am looking for? This is where the cloud-based side of Soundly can kick in. You can now search their cloud-based libraries, audition the sounds when you have found 'the one' then you can buy it and bring into your session all from within the Soundly application.

I am looking forward to using the Spot To Pro tools Feature added in Soundly 2. Also, the larger online library, and the larger rnge of libraries to buy are great additions to Soundly.